MISCELLANEA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 114, 12 March 1853, Page 11

MISCELLANEA.

Adulteration of Gold.—An important ' circumstance connected with gold is the fraud discovered in Melbourne. A letter received from a correspondent says "An extensive fraud has been discovered,' and is supposed to have l>een carried on to a great extent, in the adulteration of gold. The gold has been melted and alloyed to the extent of about 20 per cent, with copper, thereby reducing it to J6 carat gold. The gold so manufactured is not unlike shot, but having a small pellicle atone end. Four different parties are implicated, and the case has been remanded at the Police Office until ,next week." A parcel of spurious gold, I purchased by a Sydney firm about a month * ago, was examined, by the above description, at Mr. Norrie's, this morning, and correctly" corresponded. On being subjected to the force of a hammer, the particles broke with the brittleness of.a common metallic compound. The bare substance, however, resists the application of acid. By observing these points of identity the practised eye will be able easily to detect the manufactured article.— Sydney Herald. A Bui/l Fight.—A few years ago, the inhabitants of Seville read with surprise in the advertisement of an approaching bull-fight this unusual notice—" When the third bull shall have attacked the picadors and receives three pairs of banderillas, a young peasant, by whom lie has been brought up, will appear in the circus. He will approach the bull, caress it, and aTter removing the banderillas one after another will lie down between his horns." The announcement of so singular a feat attracted an immense . crowd to the amphitheatre. The third bull appeared, an animal with splendid horns, and very brave ; he slew four horses, received the bauderillas, and became furious. Then^ contrary to custom, all the torreros retired from the ring, leaving the bull stamping about, and shaking the bloody darfs that hung from his neck. All at once a long whistle was heard. The bull.paused and listened. It was repeated. He approached the.barrier; and a young man leapt into the ring, calling the bull by his name, " Mosquito ! Mosquito !" The animal knew its master, came to caress him, and-was appeased. The peasant gave it his hand to lick,,and with the other began to scratch it behind the ears; an operation which seemed to afford the poor brmemucb pleasure: he then gently removed the banderillas which annoyed the neck of Mosquito, made it go down on its knees, and placed his head between its horns. The grateful bull seemed to listen with pleasure to" a pastoral melody sung by the master. The admiration of the multitude, hitherto suppressed by surprise, burst forth with Andalucian violence and shook the building. Hearing this phrensied applause, which had accompanied all his sufferings, the bull, till then under a charm, appeared to awake and return to reality. He suddenly rose, bellowing; and the peasant tried to escape. But it was too late. The animal, as though furious at being betrayed, tossed the young man itito the air, received him again on horns, gored him, trampled on him, crushed him to pieces, in spite of the efforts of the torreros. The juncion was suspended;. and, a phenomenon in Spain, the horrified public quitted the circus in silence. — Travelsin Spain. Influence of the Moon upon the Weather. —A Paris astronomer has published the. results of twenty years' observations upon-the influence of the moon upon the weather. From the new moon to. the first quarter it rained— during the period of twenty years embraced in the calculations—764 days ; from the first quarter to the full moon it rained 761 days ; and from the last quarter to the new moon it rained 696 days. So that during the moon'sincrease there were J 525 rainy days. This difference is more likely to have been accidental than the result of any.natural cause, and the conclusion which we derive from the statement is that the moon has no influence upon the weather. . Tight Lacing.-t-Dil. Dobbin, lecturing some time back on physical education in Hull, condemned the practice of tight lacing as extremely injurious to the symmetry and the health of the female sex, and jocularly "proposed the formation ofan'Antj-kil!ing-young-women-by-a-lingering-death-Sooiety.' This was gravely reproduced on the Gontinent-.-as a- sober matter of fact, the Germans giving the hyphenated title thus: — Jungefrauenzimmcrducfcsdhwiuttsuchitoedtiingsgegenverin. i

Editorial Affliction.—Mrs. Swisshelm, who conducts the Pittsburgh Saturday Visitor with so much ability and success, has taken an editor partner, and exchanged the big arm chair behind the desk fov the rocking chair beside the cradle. She naively says—" The late afflictive dispensation, which has placed a crowing baby in our hitherto quiet home, appeared like a call to deliver the pen editorial into other hands." It is astonishing what a change a baby makes in a woman's notion of things.

A Fortunate Man.—A woman at Liege has just been confined of three children, making 24 in nine years, having had three at every accouchement. The husband, who was anxious to perpetuate his name, is much disappointed at all his children being girls.

Sounds during the Night. — The great audibility of sounds during the night is a phe-, nomenon of considerable interest, and one which bad been observed even by the ancients. In crowded cities, or in thir vicinity, the effect was generally ascribed to'the rest of animated beings, while in localities where such an explanation was inapplicable, it was supposed to arise from a favourable direction of the prevailing wind. Baron Humboldt was particularly struck with this phenomenon when he first heard the rushing of the* great cataracts of the Orinoco in the plain which surrounds the mission of the Apures. These sounds he regarded as three times louder during the night than during the day. Some authors ascribed the fact to the cessation of the humming of insects, the singing of birds, and the action of the wind on the leaves of the trees, but M. Humboldt justly maintains that this cannot be the cause of it on the Orinoco, where the buzz of insects is much louder in the night than in the day, and where the breeze never rises till after sunset. Hence he was led to ascribe the phenomenon to the perfect transparency and uniform density of the air, which can exist only at night after the heat of the ground has been uniformly diffused through the atmosphere. When the rays of the sun have been beating on the ground during the day, currents of hot air of different temperatures, and consequently of different densities are constantly ascending from the ground, and mixing with the cold air above. The air thus ceases to be a homogeneous medium, and every person must have observed the effects of it upon objects seen through it which are very indistinctly visible, and have a tremulous motion, as if they were " dancing in the air." The very same effect is perceived when we look at objects through spirits and water that are not perfectly mixed, or when we view distant objects over a red-hot poker or over a flame. In all these cases the light suffers refraction in passing from a medium of one density into a medium of a different density, and the refracted rays are constantly changing their direction as the different currents rise in succession. Analogous effects are produced when sound passes through a mixed medium, whether it consists of two different media or of one medium where portions of it have different densities. As sound moves with different velocities through media of different densities, the wave which produces the sound will be partly reflected in passing from one medium to the other, and the direction of the transmitted wave changed ; and hence, in passing through such media, different portions of the wave will reach the ear at different times, and thus destroy the sharpness and distinctness of the sound. This may be proved by many striking facts. If we put a bell in a receiver, containing a mixture of hydrogen gas and atmospheric air, the sound of the bell can scarcely be heard. During a shower of rain or of suow,noises are greatly deadened, and when sound is transmitted along an iron wire or an iron pipe of sufficient length, we actually hear - two sounds, one transmitted more rapidly through the solid and the other more slowly through the air. The same property is well illustrated by an elegant and easily repeated experiment of Chladni's. When sparkling champagne is poured into a tall glass till it is half full, the glass loses its power of ringing by a stroke upon its edge, and emits only a disiigreeable puffy sound. This effect will continue while the wine is filled.with bubbles of air, or as long as the effervescence lasts; but when the effervescence begins to subside, the sound becomes clearer and clearer, and the glass, rings as usual when the air-bubbles have vanished. If we reproduce the effervescence by stirring the champagne with a piece of bread, the glass will again cease to ring, The same experiment will succeed with other effervescing fluids.— ■ Mechanics' Magazine.

Law !—At a recent meeting of the Great Northern Railway Company, a shareholder complained of the law expenses; from the commencement they amounted to the enormous sum of £750,000, or £3,500 per mile of railway constructed. Expresses on the Great Western.—. Their express trains leave little to be desired, travelling their 120 miles (London to Bristol, say) in two hours and three-quarters, or the one run of 53 miles from Paddington to Didcot o£ 60 minutes—starting punctually, arriving punctually. Often their express dashes along at the rate of 70 miles an hour, and you are only made aware of the terrific pace at which you are moving by an occasional explode through a bridge, so to speak, or the flash past you of an express the other way. Standing on a platiorm, this passage of two trains is seen to be positively terrific ; so much so, indeed, that it is not wise for an unsteady head to get too near the edge on such an. occasion, lest the influence of the whirlwind should prove, too strong, for it. 70 miles an hour may be called 105 feet per second, and this rate is little more than four times less than that of a cannon ball when discharged; a Leaden messenger That rides upon the violeat speed of fire ; and yet within, except on an occasional bad.bit of road, you may ride without inconvenience, so steady is the carriage. These very lines, indeed, - we do write in an express thus flashing along. Trees, fields, villages, hills, come and are gone; the near objects first, those in the distance remaining longer in sight (like the earlier events of life in our memory)—yet the paper may be held steadily, and the pencil controlled.— The Builder. The Moon in Lord Bosses Telescope.—' With respect to the moon, every object on its surface of the height of one hundred feet was now distinctly to be seen ; and he had no doubt that under every favourable circumstances it would be so with objects sixty feet in height. On its surface were craters of. extinct volcanoes,, rocks, and masses of stone almost innumerable. He had no doubt whatever, that if such a build--ing as he was then in were upon the surface of the moon, it would be rendered distinctly visible by these instruments. But there were no signs of habitations such as ours— no vestiges of architectural remains to show that the moon is" or ever'was inhabited by a race "of mortals similar to ourselves. It presented no appearanceswhich could lead to the supposition that it con-, tamed anything like the green fields and lovely verdure of this beautiful world of ours. There was no water visible—not a sea nor a river, or even the measure of a reservoir for supplying" town or factory; all seemed desolate.— Dr. Scoresby on Astronomy. The Reason Why.—Why is a man ascending Vesuvius like an Irishman trying to kiss a pretty girl ? Because he wants to get at the. crater's mouth.

Biscvyan Agriculture.—The road from Fuentarabia runs through a fertile delta, intersected with innumerable dykes, branching off from the Bidassoa, which supply the surrounding farms with a capital saline manure, composed of mud and sea-weed. The principal productions of this-rich tract of alliivium consists of maize,.tobacco, tomates, pumpkins, and. potatoes, produced in successive craps from., year to year. The farmers prevent the generous soil from becoming exhausted, and at the same time gradually raise it above the encroachments of the sea, .by manuring with the seaweed, which every tide deposits plentifully in the surrounding dykes, especially during stormy, weather. The principal agricultural implement used here, and throughout thie Basque provinces, is the lava : nothing can be more primitive in its form and use than this instrument, which is peculiar to these districts, and unknown, in other countries. It is a ponderous iron fork, consisting of two prongs -about six inches apart and a yard long, the kindle beingformed of a perpendicular "piece of wood, attached to one extremity of the horizontal bur which unites the prongs. When a field is t(» be turned over, eight o/a dozen peasants station themselves in a row, each holding- a lava in" both hands., which they simultaneously raise, and then, with the impetus of the descent, drive deep into the ground, turning- up a ridge of sod at each.delve. They then take one step backward, and-perform (he same operation with isingular rapidity and regularity.

The Spanish Game or Goose. —As soon as the municipality, the provincial deputation, and the band of music had taken their places, a trim whale-boat, steered with an oar and swiftly propelled by ten rigorous rowers, darted forwards towards a goose that dangled, head downwards within a few feet of the water, from the centre of a cord attached to two poles about 40 ft. apart. In the bow of the boat stood a man wearing an old cocked hat and a white shirt and trowsers ; and as it dashed under the pendent bird at full speed, he firmly grasped its neck, aud in an instant was swinging in mid-air, holding on to the goose, amid the obstreperous merriment of the multitude, whilst persons engaged for the purpose now ran him up some 20 feet, and then suddenly let him down into the water with a tremendous splash; a feat that threw the heholders into ecstacies. Again and again these inseparables—we hardly know which was the greater goose of the two—were hoisted aloft and plumped into the briny element, vanishing for a moment in its crystal depths, and then lising half exhausted to the surface ; the reasoning biped clinging to the web-footed one with a tenacity that could only be explained by the fact that it was to become his prize if he succeeded in wringing off its head. After being ducked, or goosed, ad nauseam, and drawn up for the sixth time, dripping like a sea-god, to undergo another immersion, he let go in despair, and swam to the boat. It was clear the goose had a remarkable tough neck; and if the rest of its body was in the. same condition, the possessor of the teeth that could masticate and of the stomach that could digest it was not to be envied. The next comer was more fortunate, and succeeded in decapitating the victim after receiving three cold baths. His predecessor's efforts had rendered it an easy task, and illustrated the old adage that one man leaps what another sows."— Travels in Spain.